Softening agents are typically used to soften fabrics. Unfortunately, the current softening agents have a number of drawbacks which include high cost, a narrow pH formulation window, less than desirable stability and/or softening performance. In an effort to alleviate such drawbacks, new softening agents continue to be developed. Unfortunately, even such newly developed softening agents continue to have one or more of such drawbacks. Applicants recognized that the aforementioned drawbacks are due to one or more of the following factors: hydrolytic instability of ester linkage which is beta to the quaternary ammonium group in the molecule causes pH intolerance, the high charge density of quaternary ammonium headgroup causes salt intolerance and/or is incompatible with anionic materials such as anionic surfactants, excessively high molecular weights of the polymeric softening agents makes them difficult to process and dispose of. Thus what is required are cleaning and/or treatment compositions that comprise a material that can serve as a softening active but does not have the same level of drawbacks as current softening actives. Applicants recognized that metathesized unsaturated polyol esters can serve as such a softening active and when combined with certain fabric and home care ingredients can result in synergistic performance gains.
While not being bound by theory, Applicants believe that the uncharged nature and/or the low degree of oligomerization of the metathesized unsaturated polyol esters result in the lack of the aforementioned drawbacks. Thus metathesized unsaturated polyol esters are salt and pH tolerant as well as easier to process and dispose of, yet have a softening capability that is at least as good as that of the best current softening agents. As a result, formulations comprising such metathesized unsaturated polyol esters can have wide pH ranges, and/or salt levels and still be stable. In addition, the salt, anionic and/or pH tolerance of such formulations allows a number of ingredients to be employed by the formulator, including ingredients that hitherto were not available to formulators. Furthermore, synergistic performance gains are obtained, for example, when metathesized unsaturated polyol esters are combined with a cationic softener agent, cationic surfactant, and/or a cationic polymer there is an unexpected gain in softness performance; an unexpected increase in phase stability is obtained when metathesized unsaturated polyol esters are combined with anionic surfactant; an unexpected increase in deposition of metathesized unsaturated polyol esters is obtained when such metathesized unsaturated polyol esters are combined with water soluble solid carriers; an unexpected improvement in fabric whiteness is obtained from fabrics treated with compositions comprising metathesized unsaturated polyol esters and a brightener, a soil dispersing polymer, a hueing dye, a dye transfer inhibiting agent, and/or a detersive enzyme and mixtures thereof; finally, an unexpected gain in perfume deposition and product stability is obtained from compositions that comprise metathesized unsaturated polyol esters and perfumes and/or perfume delivery systems.
Applicants recognized that the problems with commercially available metathesized unsaturated polyol esters lay in the rheology of such materials as such rheology resulted in a range of spreading on fabrics that was insufficient with a first class of materials and excessive spreading with a second class of materials. Thus, both classes of commercially available materials exhibited insufficient lubrication. Versions of metathesized unsaturated polyol esters are disclosed that have the correct rheology. Such species of metathesized unsaturated polyol esters provide unexpectedly improved softening performance and formulability.